General Synod - Moving the Boundary Stones

To some people's surprise, an amendment was put that would have allowed people who wanted to marry two people of the same sex to do so, but we'd keep the doctrine of marriage as being between a man and a woman. This would have put us in a similar situation to that of the Church of Scotland.

However, this gracious compromise was roundly rejected by around two thirds of the Synod.

I don't know that people understood just how costly this amendment would have been if it had been accepted as a compromise that held the Biblical line but offered space to those who want to depart from the teaching of the Church to do so. It was too messy an option apparently. Those evangelicals who put it forward would have faced a great deal of criticism from around the world for even suggesting it. It would have hurt us a lot. Yet it has now been rejected, and we are left with a situation where there are no options on the table tomorrow that someone like me will be able to support.

It does seem that this is a situation where the winner must take it all, and those who are holding to what the majority of the two billion Christians around the world would understand marriage is about will be the new minority, who might have a conscience clause to protect them, and that will be it.

It will leave me having to think carefully about what my future relationship can be with a denomination that chooses to go its own way.

A friend shared a hard word with me this evening, that stopped me in my tracks. The context of this verse is even more sobering:

Judah’s leaders are like those
    who move boundary stones.
I will pour out my wrath on them
    like a flood of water. Hosea 5:10

There's still time to re-establish those boundary stones.........